CAL Heritage Project / Dr. Peyton
Higher Ed / SUNY New Paltz, Wilma Feliciano
Research Adriana Val
Higher Education
SUNY New Paltz, New York
Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Foreign Languages, Spanish
Address: DFL JFT 414, New Paltz, New York 12561
Contact: Wilma Feliciano
Professor of Spanish, Chair of FL
Email: feliciaw@newpaltz.edu
Telephone: 845-257-3488
Web address: www.newpaltz.edu/~feliciaw
Languages/dialects taught: Spanish.
SUNY New York offers 11 languages, with majors in French, German and Spanish for
undergraduate level.
Program Description
Purposes and goals of the program: Advanced literacy and writing skills, heightened
cultural awareness of U.S. Latino and Hispanic cultures around the world.
Program Origins: The program began in mid 1970 and lasted until about 2000; It was
revived in the fall 2005. In the mid-1970s there was a strong push for bilingualism across
New York and Edgar Rodriguez, the founder, also administered the language component of
bilingual program.
Faculty's and administration's expectations for the program: Critical thinking and
effective expression in Spanish There has always been reluctance of heritage speakers to
enroll in Spanish for Native Speakers; perceived as more difficult and more work.
Students
First-generation: 70%
Second-generation: 30%
Countries of origin: In mid-1980s, mostly Puerto Rican. Now mostly Dominican
Total student enrollment: 20 in fall 05
Age of students: 18-20
Student Grouping: Students are not grouped according to level because there is only one
course; Spanish Native Speakers, 89315 (89 Spanish code), 300 level, 4 hours per week for
14 weeks.
Identification of Heritage Speakers: Heritage speakers are identified by counselors. Since
the fall of 2005, the first year of the revival of the program, Wilma Feliciano worked with
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CAL Heritage Project / Dr. Peyton
Higher Ed / SUNY New Paltz, Wilma Feliciano
Research Adriana Val
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Economic Opportunities Program (EOP), NYS program for financially and academically
disadvantaged students. She explained goals, scope, and sequence and how to identify
heritage speakers. EOP counselors decide which students will go into SNS classes.
Counselors speak to students in Spanish about language use, Spanish as primary home
language, and native accent in an oral interview. Some students visit Wilma Feliciano, and
she encourages them into SNS or advises to take it by EOP.
Percentage of students who complete the program: Began with 22, ended with 20
Percentage of students who continue to study the heritage language after completing the
program: Uncertain, perhaps 50%. Continuing students take upper-level courses with
foreign language students.
Possible reasons for not completing the program: Too much work or too difficult
Students' attitudes toward the language varieties they speak: Most tell counselors that
they speak "Spanglish" and feel insecure about formal language skills: They are uncertain
about what constitutes formal registers.
Faculty
Total number of faculty teaching in the program: 1
Number of tenure-track professors: 1
Languages in which faculty members are proficient: The instructor is a native Spanish
speaker and also proficient in Italian, French, and English. She is an educated native speaker,
Ph.D.
Credentials: Teacher certification from New York State in Spanish K-12 and taught Spanish
at all levels from K to graduate seminars. BA in Spanish, MA in Spanish, PhD in Latin
American drama, and 18 credits in graduate linguistics. NEH Summer Institute "Teaching
Spanish to Hispanic Bilinguals," 1978, New Mexico State University.
Professional development opportunities that faculty have: Research and travel grants,
competitive funding
Professional development opportunities that faculty needs: More funding
Instruction
Spanish for heritage speakers is one course, 300, advanced level. Students must speak
Spanish as their primary home language.
Language Skills
• Listening
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Higher Ed / SUNY New Paltz, Wilma Feliciano
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Speaking
Reading
Writing
Culture
Skills and levels of language proficiency that students reach by the end of the program: Most
reach advanced level speaking and advanced-low writing. The course focus mainly on
writing skills, with a lot of work on content, organization, development, and mechanics
Culture
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History
Traditions/beliefs
Dances
Social and cultural norms
Cultural appropriateness
Literature
Kind of student identity the program fosters: US Latino with proclivity toward the
Caribbean and Mexico
Methodologies
Spelling: Sounds, division into syllables, accents, dictations, exercises in texts and handouts
Speaking: Discussions based on daily life and readings
Develop ideas into full paragraphs by eliciting additional information; "tu/usted".
Listening: Civility in public discourse; reactions to student input; written responses to
recorded material.
Reading: Text begins readings with oral recordings of first few paragraphs, then their
students continue reading and responding to questions (both comprehension and interpretive)
on own. Readings include current events, essays, and short literary selections, all genres
except the novel.
Materials
Textbook: Entre Mundos: An Integrated Approach for the Native Speaker. text and
workbook. Prentice Hall, 2004.
Other materials: Web sites, audio recordings, maps, cultural realia
Technology used in the program: The class is taught in an electronic classroom.
Assignments and supplementary materials are placed online using Blackboard.
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Higher Ed / SUNY New Paltz, Wilma Feliciano
Research Adriana Val
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Assessment
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Three in-class exams and final: 40%
Performance-based tasks
ACTFL OPI (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language’s Oral Proficiency
Interview)
Six compositions: First draft with substantive comments, then final revision for grade.
Journals: grade based on # of one page (steno pad) entries; 12 entries total equal C;
writing is 30%
Oral presentation (10 minutes in pairs)
Written report (3-4 pp, 3 sources minimum; pairs); any topic related to US Latino history
and culture, 20%
Articulation
Opportunities heritage students have outside the college to use their heritage language:
All students in the Fall05 lived in NYC. They have lots of opportunities to speak Spanish.
Many speak Spanglish with friends and family. I encourage them to go to plays and
museums in NYC. But the university does not promote involvement.
What the program has in place
Financial support comes from the university because it is a regular course.
Other financial support: Encouragement from EOP counselors. The college pays the
professor’s salary and a reasonable amount for materials ($200).
System for graduating students and granting credit: regular General Education course, 4
credits. Fulfills the foreign language requirement and counts as the first course toward a major
in Spanish or Latin American (36 Credits) or a minor in Spanish (19 Credits) or Latin American
(18 Credits). Students need 120 credits to graduate.
How the program track students' overall academic achievement or career goals:
80-90% of students in F05 were EOP, which tracks achievement. SUNY NP has about a 76%
EOP graduate rate, higher than the general college population.
Research on heritage language issues or heritage program evaluations: Wilma Feliciano is
preparing a paper for a conference sponsored by CCNY, Spanish Department Distinguished
Alumni, on aspects of teaching Spanish. She wants to research and present on overcoming the
reluctance of native speakers to enroll in heritage courses. She published several articles on SNS
in the early 1980s like Feliciano, Wilma. "Spanish Native Speakers (?)," in Teaching Hispanic
Bilinguals Guadalupe Valdes and Anthony Lozano, (eds.), Teachers College Press, 1981.
Special Challenges and Comments
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Students come from inner-city disadvantaged schools and have rather low critical thinking and
writing skills. They need to work from word and sentence level up and distinguish their intimate
and familial language registers from formal discourse.
Additional comments: SUNY NP has about 400 self-identified Latinos with varying proficiency
in Spanish. Overwhelmingly, they feel insecure about their linguistic command, so the instructor
needs to do a lot of confidence building. Students really enjoyed the culture component, and in
general expressed more awareness of language as a system and felt more empowered by their
enhanced ability to express themselves, both orally and in writing. Many told the instructor it
was worth all the extra work. Nevertheless, only six students enrolled for 89315 in the spring
2006 term, and the course was cancelled. Wilma Feliciano spoke to several students. They said
the problem is the workload and the fact that the instructor is a rigorous teacher. This reluctance
implies that too many heritage speakers want an easy grade over improving their skills.
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